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The Scientology ARC triangle on the back page of the Helnwein 1976 ZKK catalogue
The Scientology Staff in the ZKK
After the end of the first "test phase" in fall 1976, ZKK "President Helnwein" (Profil - quote) drew self-critical balance into his second art catalog "Art + Communication 76 / II", which listed the artistic part of the activities in the art center during this first period. This time, besides Helnwein and his friend, Angelika Blaskovich, it showed the people responsible for the organization as Toni Griebaum, Jochen Wahl, Robert Schoeller, Liane Pach and Fritz Fuhrmann.
Jochen Wahl
In the German Scientology magazine for members, "Ursprung," published and distributed in 1975 by the Scientology Church of Germany with its offices in Munich, successful Scientologists were portrayed along with their pictures. They included ZKK member Jochen Wahl. As did his friend, Helnwein, he studied art in Vienna under Rudolf Hausner. Stamped by the Viennese school, he got mainly involved with graphics, sculpture and painting in the style of the old masters. In 1975, Jochen Wahl literally stated in his success report, "For me, as an artist, the
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Jochen Wahl and Gottfried Helnwein in Vienna (from: " 1976 ZKK Catalog")
realizations from Scientology are of inestimable worth. Not only have I been able to enliven my conceptual ability, but one of my biggest wins is probably that I can now accept and assimilate several standpoints. Besides that L. Ron Hubbard's research into the phenomenon of work has helped me to be able to do things which before I only dreamt of - without difficulties in starting, without difficulties in the material or even difficulties in bringing a matter to an end. As concerns interpersonal relations, I can say that my marriage is going very well - no snarling battles with insidious tricks, as communications had used to be. I have not been a Scientologist for very long, but the results which I have gotten from Scientology have decisively changed me - and in ways that I could only ever have dreamt of."
Jochen Wahl was then also able to promptly and successfully use his new-found "knowledge" in the ZKK. However, that was only for a short two years. Then the center was reorganized. In 1978, Wahl traveled back to Stuttgart to put on an exhibit in the Niedlich Gallery. "Jochen Wahl worked for a long time with Gottfried Helnwein in the Viennese Communication Center," as proudly reported in spring of 1978 in issue 24 of "Mission" magazine of the Scientology mission in Stuttgart.
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Gottfried Helnwein
Those thanked in the exhibition catalog of fall 1976 for "their support" included Scientologist celebrities Chick Corea and Karen Black, as well as a certain Donald Duck, who apparently is not a Scientologist, but who knows ....
From the forward, "The ZKK is a collection of art work. Painters Helnwein, Schwertberger, Hechelmann and Wahl decided ... together to start an experiment. The ZKK was founded on that account. Now the "Art + Communication 76" campaign has been arranged with Angelika Blaskovich and Toni Griebaum. The form of the event was chaotic. The attempt was made to simply get as much experience as possible.
Helnwein beside his picture in the ZKK (from: " 1976 ZKK Catalog")
The intention was not to increase the quality, to perfect the technique or to cultivate a presence, but to have communication take place and to have as many people as possible participate. So far, we have not been subsidized. The members raise the money all by themselves... The goal is to become independent in relation to production, means of production, publication and operation. And spontaneous."
On the cover of the catalogue was another Helnwein photograph, the letters "arc" on a white background were on the back cover, and inside were several Helnwein drawings. There were also many photographs of several events in the ZKK, including one with Wolfgang Ambros and Julia Migenes,
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opera singer and an enthusiastic celebrity Scientologist since the '60s. Even Vienna's mayor-to-be Helmut Zilk was wishfully portrayed as a "member" of the ZKK, as was U.S. jazz pianist Chick Corea listed as "friend," also a top Scientologist and, at OT VIII since 1990, the highest grade, the same as Helnwein's wife, Renate.
Scientologist Chick Corea in the ZKK (from: " 1976 ZKK Catalog")
In the opinion of former "members," including course participant Steiden from Vienna, many events, cleverly disguised as cultural arrangements, took place mainly for only one reason: to put positive attention on L. Ron Hubbard and his Scientology Utopia for the purpose of obtaining money-bearing course participants for "Scientology." Indeed, Helnwein ended up managing to do just that in many cases.
Helnwein's Scientology Center was financed mainly by course participants with payments for auditing and courses, by private membership fees and by selling works of art by Helnwein and other artists at the campaign building.
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Angelika Blaskovich
Angelika Blaskovich (from: " 1976 ZKK Catalog")
Angelika Blaskovich, one of the organizers, on the subject in the exhibition catalog "76 / II", "...Where does the money come from? That seems to be the key question and the solution for everything and everyone. How much and how often, that brings the desired category, it must indeed come from somewhere, now from up to about 20 people, none over thirty and, on the average, very well-mannered. Nobody has made contributions, no bank ... no private individual, no public hand has so much as lifted a finger to support us in what we have been doing... Several days ago, production of our first TV children's film was contracted. (ARD, Sueddeutscher Rundfunk, Producer: Fritz Hechelmann)..."
Fritz Hechelmann
Not only did Friedrich "Fritz" Hechelmann, as a producer, bless the German television audience of ARD with his above-mentioned (Scientology) children's film in 1976, he had also delivered his success report for publication in the German Hubbard headquarters Munich Scientology magazine, "Ursprung."
"Fritz Hechelmann, Artist and Producer: I have attained important realizations through the technology of Scientology; these are still helping me
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to realize my goals in my career and in life without difficulties. With the attainment of these realizations, much is operating in parallel. For instance, the relations to my family and all other human contacts are forming very intensively and harmoniously. Through this I can concentrate on my optimal career intention. As a painter, illustrator and producer of children's film for television, it is easy for me to translate my visual conceptions onto film without compromise. My ability to think has developed extensively through Scientology's technology, thereby making the quality of my creations more intensive. The reader can convince himself of that. My illustrated picture books can be ordered in every book store ... Scientology has helped me in the realization of this project. At first I used a part of Scientology's technology, and the results exceeded my expectations. Through this I see great potential for my further personal development."
Robert Schoeller
Robert Schoeller (from: " 1976 ZKK Catalog")
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Today ZKK comrade-in-arms Robert Schoeller, for more than 24 years now, is still a fervent adherent of Hubbard and one of the best friends of the Helnwein family. In spite of that, to all appearances, and in spite of his denial in the Viennese "News" magazine, issue 43 / 96, that he had ever written anything like this, and that this was in all likelihood a counterfeit, on September 25, 1985 Helnwein wrote a "knowledge report," comparable to an East German Stasi report, on his friend Robert along with his long-term female companion, Gudrun, in which he denounced them to Scientology ethics officers, responsible for criminal measures, in Florida. But more on that later.
Fritz Fuhrmann
Another founding member of the ZKK, Friedrich "Fritz" Fuhrman, also an oldie in Scientology just like his old friend Gottfried Helnwein, is, 16 (!) years later, one of the top management functionaries of the Scientology organization in Austria. He functions as the "leading publisher and distributer" of member magazine "Bruecke" number 86 / 1991 of the Scientology Church of Austria with its offices on 13 - 15 Schottenfeldgasse in Vienna, which in this issue under the title "What has the 20 year anniversary of the Scientology Church in Austria brought?" celebrates its own existence as well that of twenty (!) other "missions" in Austria. In this way, Scientology is on an absolute course of expansion in Austria. Thanks to many former members of the ZKK.
Scientology in Germany praises Helnwein for his services - 1977
Back in early 1977, "College," the leading Scientology membership magazine of the time, published in issue Nr. 18 /19 1977 its first highly official public hymns of praise for the two only existing Scientology training establishments in Austria at the time: the "Scientology Church Vienna" and Helnwein's "Center for Art and Communication."
Under the heading "Glance towards Austria" was written:
"Somewhat later than in the Federal Republic [of Germany], Scientology got a foothold in our neighboring state of Austria. The only two Scientology training establishments there, as of 1977, are in their capitol of Vienna. In the Scientology Church in Vienna one can, as in Munich,
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"Somewhat later than in the
Federal Republic [of Germany], Scientology got a foothold in our neighboring
state of Austria. The only two Scientology training establishments there, as
of 1977, are in their capitol of Vienna.
In the Scientology Church in Vienna one can, as in Munich, go to the academy and train up to Class IV auditor. The staff at the local church presently consists of 23 people who visibly confront a constantly greater expansion.
In order to make up for a shortage of trained staff, the Viennese organization sent four people to Flag Land Base in the USA in order to be able to considerably increase the level of training and auditing.
Through its own newspaper, lectures and the distribution of tests, the young organization has gotten a constantly growing number of students and members.
The Center for Art and Communication moved into the heart of the city, in one of the liveliest pedestrian zones. It is managed by the renowned painter Gottfried Helnwein, who has created a cultural reference point with a large number of artists.
Large posters on the street point out the most diverse events at this center, which puts on a constant program of exhibitions ranging from films to concerts.
On a surface area of 400 square
meters, 12 full-time staff and 4 half-time people work on implementing their
highly set goals.
Besides training up to Dianetics Auditor, one can obtain outstanding auditing from a Class IX Auditor there.
Besides the above-mentioned posters, art catalogs are offered and regular introductory lectures are held. The understandably constantly increasing interest in Scientology has forced this association for art and applied philosophy to move to new, bigger spaces.
Meanwhile, endeavors are also in process to create training centers in the other major cities of Austria.
Helnwein's Scientology Center in Vienna was presented in Germany in "College" Scientology magazine in 1977.
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go to the academy and train up to Class IV auditor. The staff at the local church presently consists of 23 people who visibly confront a constantly greater expansion. In order to make up for a shortage of trained staff, the Viennese organization sent four people to Flag Land Base in the USA in order to be able to considerably increase the level of training and auditing. Through its own newspaper, lectures and the distribution of tests, the young organization has gotten a constantly growing number of students and members.
The Center for Art and Communication moved into the heart of the city, in one of the liveliest pedestrian zones. It is managed by the renowned painter Gottfried Helnwein, who has created a cultural reference point with a large number of artists. Large posters on the street point out the most diverse events at this center, which puts on a constant program of exhibitions ranging from films to concerts. On a surface area of 400 square meters, 12 full-time staff (!) and 4 half-time people work on implementing their highly set (by Scientology) goals. Besides training up to Dianetics Auditor, one can obtain outstanding auditing from a Class IX Auditor there.
Besides the above-mentioned posters, art catalogs (!) are offered and regular introductory lectures are held. The understandably constantly increasing interest in Scientology has forced this association for art and applied philosophy to move to new, bigger spaces. Meanwhile, endeavors are also in process to create training centers in the other major cities of Austria."
But it never came to that. Not until seven years later, in winter of 1984, did Helnwein open another, but not publicly propagated culture and training center in his new residence in Burgbrohl Castle near Cologne for the Scientology training of freshly recruited Hubbard adherents from the surrounding area.
The End of the first Helnwein Scientology "Art Center" - Vienna in Fall 1977
In March 1977, the ZKK's third catalog was presented to the public, this time with a project before the gates of Vienna in the the Perchtoldsdorf Culture Center. For the last time, between March 26 and April 3, 1977, exhibitions, concerts and seminars were announced daily.
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Once again with performers including Helnwein, Wahl, Hechelmann, Schwertberger, Zadrazil, Gansert and Schoeller. But the participation of the Austrian media had already waned noticeably. Deep disappointment spread within the ranks of the artists.
In the same month, one of the last articles on the work in the center under Helnwein's management appeared. For the last time, the editors of the "Schoener Leben" magazine gave the ZKK a generous platform for their self-presentation and another publicly effective opportunity to recruit new adherents for Scientology, under the guise of individual "cultural offers."
"Schoener Leben" magazine's issue nr. 1 wrote in its forward, under "Internal," "...The unusual thing about the Viennese Center is that the contact to the public for which it is striving is not an excuse to meet buyers, but rather is meant to be, as the group's chief, painter Gottfried Helnwein has credibly assured us - a platform for a conversation with every individual who sees art as more than just an item for consumers ..." In the middle section the editors gave the Viennese artists' exact words, "We understand as much about art as you. We are the Viennese Center for Art and Communication ... With fascination we observe how art adapts daily to people. We want to make as much known as possible about these unconscious processes. We now introduce ourselves: Gottfried Helnwein ... Julia Migenes, Ivan Eroed" (cofounder of Scientology Austria in 1972, today employed as a music professor in Vienna).
"You now know our names ... That is not enough for us. We want you to visit us personally in our work spaces and studios. ... Art is for us: conversation, understanding, feeling, learning and doing. We wish to collect as much experience as possible. We cannot do that alone. Therefore we ask your assistance through this magazine ... Our current policy is that entrance is free for everybody who is prepared to collect experience and to exchange experiences..."
Even false promises could no longer help the center. After only two years at a Scientology attempt to infiltrate the Austrian cultural scene, it was suddenly all over for the Helnwein center in summer 1977. The "ambitious" Scientology project to build a "Celebrity Center" had failed. The experiment had prematurely come to an end. Gottfried Helnwein, the "Executive Director" (ED) of the Viennese Scientology Mission, the Center for Art and Communication, as he was described by former Viennese Scientology staff member Heidrun Beer on
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The ZKK presented itself in the "Schoener Leben" magazine in 1977.
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Calendar of events at the ZKK - 1977
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the internet under the alias of "Clear Baby" and still is today - Helnwein, in his function as ED had recruited "Clear Baby" as staff for his "mission" in 1977 - was at the end of his rope. Was that possible?
Helnwein "fled" for seven months of spiritual recuperation (or possibly for the purpose of atoning for his transgression?) to the USA. In summer 1975 Hubbard had opened his new "FLAG" headquarters, in spite of massive protests by the people there, in the little run-down seaside city of Clearwater on the Gulf Coast of sunny Florida. The "Fort Harrison," formerly a luxury hotel in the center of the small city, was to be promoted within a short period of time in what he called the "FLAG" service center to the Mecca for all Scientologists worldwide. Included among them were Gottfried and his wife Renate. That was to be the only place to offer the highest Scientology courses (OT and auditing). In the same building could also be found the leadership of Hubbard's intelligence service, which had been incorporated at the time under the title of "Guardian Office." It was not until 1983 that the GO received the new designation of "Office of Special Affairs," or OSA for short.
The Helnwein Center on the second story of 8 Singer Str. would be dissolved starting that day. Long-time course supervisors for Scientology courses and auditing, like his wife-to-be Renate and future former member Heinrich P. Steiden, moved shortly thereafter into the so-called "Scientology Center - Vienna - Association for Art and Applied Philosophy." That is where, from 1978 under a new name and management, structurally altered a little bit, but contextually the same, "activities" went on as they had in Helnwein's former ZKK.
In the years that followed, "Guru" Helnwein pursued further developments of Scientology Austria with great interest in the background as a "gray eminence." Nevertheless, he did not let it be known that he was personally, successfully involved with the new Hubbard disciples in the Viennese Org (Organization). One prominent example of that is athlete Rudi Kruspel.
It was not until four years later that Helnwein expressed himself for the first time publicly, albeit shortly, as to the reasons "his" center failed. In the art book "Helnwein" which appeared in 1981 from Orac-Pietsch publishing:
"I had always wanted to develop other new projects. That was supposed to happen with the "Center." There have indeed been very definite
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moments in very definite places where suddenly much that was unheard of would happen, where important things were created. The farm house in Paris at the turn of the century, the Berlin of the 1920s and Liverpool at the time of the Beatles. But I soon had to recognize that one cannot plan something like that and that it cannot be synthetically produced."
And one more time in 1992 in the book, "Malerei muss sein wie Rockmusic" ["Painting has to be like rock music"], which appeared from C.H. Beck publishing. Helnwein said, "That happened for various reasons; it was an important experience for me. I tried out something completely different: painted and drew less, organized and talked more, brought people together - for a time, then it was gone. Then I wanted to get away again."
After his return from his almost 3/4 year "studies layover" in the USA, including Florida and the west coast, in 1978 he rented his own studio back in Vienna again, this time by himself in order to seek commercial success, mainly by drawing hyperrealistic portraits of celebrities for magazine covers. His change of style onto this very popular stage finally brought him the financial success he had hoped for, along with devastating criticism for his art, which apparently made no difference to him.
Rudi Kruspel
In fall 1978, he got to know his later assistant Rudi Kruspel, with whom he is said to be maintaining a more than friendly contact since that time. The former Austrian champion diver, who lost his left leg as a consequence of an unfortunate training jump and who subsequently became addicted to drugs, has a lot to thank Helnwein for. He let Kruspel live at his place. In return for that, he helped Helnwein in renovating his studio, developed photos for him and now and then took care of Helnwein's children. Kruspel very quickly became the family "man" of all trades. Helnwein, in turn, supported him in his painting and paved the way for him to an artistic career. Kruspel came to fame thanks to Helnwein's personal support; he trained him as a painter and got him off drugs.
By 1982 he already had several of his own very successful art exhibitions of his own pictures behind him. In the media in Austria, he had Helnwein celebrated as the savior of a "stray sheep." On September 14, 1982 on the ORF broadcast, "Panorama" a show ran about the "new," successful, now drug-free life of Rudi Kruspel, the painter. From the program announcement of the AZ Austrian newspaper of the same day, "The article reported how
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internationally renowned ex-champion high diver, Rudi Kruspel, mastered his serious loss. Kruspel, who was addicted to alcohol and drugs for ten years after the amputation of his leg, has new meaning in his life after meeting Gottfried Helnwein, the painter. He successfully fought his addiction and turned into a painter. In 'Panorama,' he talked about the hardest years of his life." But all that is only a part of the truth, because Rudi Kruspel did not just learn painting techniques from Helnwein, through him he also made the acquaintance of Scientology, the "wonder drug."
Renate Helnwein, the Scientology course supervisor in the Center for Art and Communication, which in 1977 closed its portals for the next five years, was also there in Vienna, as reported by "Profil" magazine in 1980: a highly "involved combatant in grievances against psychiatry, and since 1974, just as involved in Scientology (!)...".
Thanks to Helnwein's successful recruitment, that is how it's been for Rudi Kruspel, too, who since 1978 has also been an active - that means he pays cash - "successful" Scientologist, and was to remain one until far into the 1990s.
In 1987, the Austrian Scientology "Bruecke" magazine published Kruspel's "success story" after nine years "in Scientology" under the title, "Successful Scientologists count their Wins":
Rudi Kruspel, Painter: "I have many courses which I really would have liked to have taken and surely still will ahead of me, and therefore I am very happy. Even the smallest course I have studied has brought about very great, positive changes in my life, and with each individual course I find out that I can apply the data I study in each area of my life and that it always works. I have only had this experience in the study of Scientology, and I profit from that as an artist, as well as in all other areas of my life so that I consider the value of these courses to be 'unpayable'! I know 100% that only with the training would I have had these many wins in auditing, stayed stable and been able to expand so that I can be OT to the degree I want and that I can get EVERYTHING I want!"
The "New" ZKK in Vienna - 1981
In 1982, after a five year break, a new Scientology "Center for Art and Communication" opened up under the same name in Vienna on 19 - 21 Neulinggasse. This time it was without the official personal involvement of Gottfried Helnwein, who now stayed hidden in the background,
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but with intensive involvement of Helnwein confidantes, such as his personal assistant of the time, Evi Morell, who later went on to be a long-term Executive Director of Scientology Austria.
From the October program of the "new" ZKK, "Wednesday, October 6, 1982, 7:30 p.m. - Viewing the exhibition of Rudi Kruspel ... Kruspel, who was recently seen on the Panorama TV broadcast, is showing a cross section of his creations. With this exhibition, he intends to support the Narconon drug rehabilitation project, a method that uses no medications or narcotics ... Saturday, Oct. 16 and Sunday Oct. 17, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. - Seminar "The Fundamentals of Art." For all who have wanted to increase their creative abilities and are interested in more knowledge of artistic effects. "Uncertainty is there where knowledge is missing." (L. Ron Hubbard) Contribution: 600 Austrian shillings. The art workshop "The Fundamentals of Art" was also offered in ZKK's November 82 program.
Only two years later in 1984/1985, Helnwein's old friend and helper Kruspel was to help establish a new branch of the Duesseldorf Scientology Celebrity Center, a so-called "City Office," on Helnwein's new Germany primary residence, and move together with the Helnwein clan into the two free-standing buildings directly adjacent to each other on the lavish estate of a castle which bore the same name as the small village of Burgbrohl.
Narconon - Chilocco USA I
"Narconon" is one of the very many Scientology cover companies. Rudi Kruspel is not the only one who supports "Narconon." His friend and "savior" Gottfried Helnwein, still today, is a great supporter and major sponsor, as is evident in an article in the American Scientology membership magazine "Celebrity," 1990 edition - with the copyright notice in the masthead on page 3: "Copyright 1990 by the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International.... All rights reserved." What is interesting about that is that the "Celebrity" magazine logo, as well as the words Celebrity Center, Dianetics, E-meter, Hubbard, LRH, Scientologist and Scientology are service and trade marks in the possession of so-called "Religious Technology Center" (RTC) whose offices are in Los Angeles, which was bequeathed all rights to his creations by founder Hubbard. The word "Narconon," in contrast, is a trade mark in the possession of ABLE International.
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Scientology member "Celebrity" magazine is distributed from "The Church of Scientology, Celebrity Centre International, 5930 Franklin Ave., Hollywood, California," a place which is very well known to Gottfried Helnwein and his wife Renate from many personal visits, and not just between 1988 and 1993.
One can find the Scientology hotel at the same address as the editorial staff of "Celebrity"; it is the "Manor Hotel," (shades of King Ludwig), a five-star luxury hotel under business management of the Scientology Church International (SCI). That is where the Helnwein family's "main support point" is during their visits to Los Angeles, which sometimes last several weeks.
According to statements made by local hotel staff in August 1996, it is also possible for other prominent Scientologists, not just John Travolta and Tom Cruise, but also for Priscilla Presley, to not only admire Gottfried Helnwein's art work which is on display there, but also to commercially acquire it.
On page 12 of this "Celebrity" issue of spring 1990, it states revealingly in black and white that the painter Helnwein is an extraordinarily generous "big spender" for the Scientology organization of Narconon:
"Renowned fine artist Gottfried Helnwein donated a great deal of art (winter 1989) to the cause of Narconon (R) Chilocco New Life Center in Oklahoma. From the sold donated pieces, over $150,000 was donated to Chilocco, (which, after its opening, will be one of the largest drug rehabilitation centers in the world)..."
"Celebrity" magazine announced that Helnwein donated his art work for the "Narconon" Scientology organization - 1990
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In this over two square kilometer large institution is a highly controversial drug therapy center ("We declare war on all drugs") which uses Scientology healing methods developed by Ron Hubbard which are dubious, and not just in the USA, which will house, after construction, over 500 full-time "SC staff" and more than 1,000 people who are suffering from drug addiction. Thanks to the generous financial support of famous Scientologists like Helnwein, the highly controversial "Chilocco" center has been ceremoniously opened on June 29, 1990 in the presence of over 1,500 invited top Scientologists from the entire world, in a whirlwind two day celebration near the small town of Newkirk. At the wish of the PR department director Jessica Byrnes - like her friend Renate Helnwein a long-term "patron" of the IAS whose financial assistance helped to fill up the war chest of the worldwide OSA operation - the opening speaker of the Chilocco "New Life Center," the renowned long-established promoter of Scientology ideals, Hubbard admirer and management U.N. staff member in New York City, is to be the Austrian Dr. Hans Janitschek - he is the president of the International Writers Society. His longtime friend, Renate Helnwein, is to take over the execution of this difficult mission. Whether she will be successful remains to be seen.
The relationship between Gottfried Helnwein, Hans Janitschek and Scientology President Heber Jentzsch
For many years now, Dr. Hans Janitschek, friend and biographer of Austrian media czar Hans Dichand who, among other things, is the publisher of the influential Viennese "Kronen" newspaper and a major Helnwein admirer and promoter since 1972, has successfully plunged into battle for Narconon. Many quotes from Janitschek praising the ideas and the project of Narconon can be found in recent years in countless Scientology publications.
The honorary Viennese resident Dr. Hans Janitschek, as does his age-old friend Helnwein, is among the especially close friends of long-term Scientology President and the highest official representative of the organization worldwide, Heber Jentzsch.
Janitschek and Jentzsch met more than once in New York at
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Scientology President Jentzsch in 1988 in the UNO, thanks to his "door-opener" and friend Hans Janitschek (from: "SC Today" 1988, CSI OSA)
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common meetings about the continued future and expansion of the Scientology organization. According to information from high-ranking ex-members, they also talked about their leading Austrian comrade-in-arms residing in Germany and Europe's most prominent Scientology member, Gottfried Helnwein.
On March 27, 1993, Scientology chief Jentzsch sent a hand-written letter from Los Angeles to his good old friend and helper, Gottfried Helnwein, in Burgbrohl, with the words, "My dear friends Gottfried and Renate." In this very personal letter, Jentzsch described how he and Hans Janitschek had wandered through the streets of Manhattan together and had a few "thoughts" about the further development of Scientology in Germany. Helnwein was to take on a "special function" in a way in which Jentzsch did not more closely approach in his personal letter. Scientology President Jentzsch closed his very friendly letter to Helnwein with the words, "... much love, your Heber Jentzsch."
This direct, friendly relationship is more than enough to show the high value which the artist Helnwein has taken on since 1985, after his tactical move from Vienna to Burgbrohl, as "secret" governor of the Scientologists in Germany and especially well instructed informant for political affairs, specifically German political affairs - Helnwein has been very close friends for many years with Green Party Federal Assembly Vice President Antje Vollmer - for the highest management crew of the organization in the USA. In that he is among the five most important celebrity members which the Scientology organization has worldwide. To be sure Helnwein, to the regret of the supreme leadership in Los Angeles, quite the opposite to other worldwide famous Scientologists like John Travolta and Tom Cruise, uses his activities for Scientology, unnoticed by the broad German public, as a sort of "burr under the saddle" of his homeland of choice and desire, Germany, occasionally blowing the whistle to the Scientology center in Florida, in the best Stasi tradition, on his old Scientology friends who sometimes came to visit him in his castle if they were not 100% "on lines" or carries out the dirtiest hate campaign against Germany as an "innocent Scientologist persecuted by the Germans" in Washington, such as happened in January 1997. The only bad luck the alleged non-Scientologist had was with his actual deed of betrayal in Washington when the American Scientology headquarters, as thanks for his lecture to the staff of the U.S. State Department, in an official press release of January 14, 1997
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fully intentionally outed him as a Scientologist, thereby finally bringing his years of hard legal and media work in building a house of lies in Germany to a thunderous and deafening collapse in the shortest amount of time. Since then, Helnwein has not operated above water in Germany. Neither have his promoters Vollmer or Biolek.
Narconon - Chilocco II
The American Narconon center was regarded from the first rather suspiciously and, above all, negatively.
The village of Newkirk with its 2,500 inhabitants, only two miles away, had tried to prevent "Chilocco" for years, particularly by publishing extensive information on the organization in the local paper. This strong public counter-attack brought Scientology's intelligence agency, OSA, into the plan.
As the well-known daily newspaper the Los Angeles Times revealed in its June 29, 1990 edition, only 10 days after the opening of the center, the Scientology management, one of whose leading directors is concurrently the boss of the notorious OSA, had used their Hollywood resident attorney Cooley, as they had done several times over the years since 1980, to hire Eugene Ingram the detective, an ex-LA police sergeant fired in 1981 for aiding in illegal prostitution and currently employed primarily by Scientology and OSA INT staff, who was reported as late as November 1991 to be involved in murder contracts against two Scientology opponents.
The L.A. Times wrote, "When he needed information, he simply turned to his former friends in the L.A. Police Department.... In 1989, Ingram, together with several of his detective colleagues, suddenly appeared on assignment for the Scientology secret agency management in the little town of Newkirk in Oklahoma. They began investigations of the city workers who lived there and work against the owner and publisher of the local daily newspaper. The publisher fought stubbornly with all the editorial means at his disposal against the nearby 'Narconon' drug center. At the high point of the dispute, Bob Lobsinger's daily paper revealed that secret printed Scientology documents showed that, in reality, the Scientology organization was in administrative control of 'Narconon.' Because of this revelation,
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an anti-Narconon sentiment began to spread extensively in town.
The OSA struck back. In September 1989, the 2,500 inhabitants of Newkirk received an 'open letter' which announced that private detective Ingram had been hired to investigate all the enemies of Narconon in the city. It was written in the letter that 'individual residents had used everything they could to libel the Scientology Church.' After private detective Ingram showed up in town, he immediately tracked down the 12 year old son of the mayor in the town library, gave him his calling card and communicated to the puzzled boy that his father should give him a call. His mother was shocked when her son told her about it. Other detectives also "visited" the court buildings of the city, where they searched publicly accessible records for 'dirty facts' out of the past of a few prominent local residents. 'They investigated the director of the bank, the president of the chamber of commerce and, of course, the mayor, too,' said publisher Lobsinger.
Garry Bilger, mayor of Newkirk, and strictly an opponent of Narconon, also told of an unannounced visitor to his office spaces who wanted to interview him. 'He was taking photographs in my office, and I asked him to stop immediately. When I asked him whether he was a Scientologist, he ran without answering out of my office.' - 'Scientologists always proceed according to the same mode of conduct. First they try to be very aggressive in order to intimidate you. That is not something we need in Newkirk. ... That shows me that they are far from being harmless. The city will continue fighting Narconon until all the Scientologists have disappeared,' Mayor Bilger told the Los Angeles Times. However, neither he nor the courageous inhabitants of Newkirk could prevent the opening of the center in June 1990.
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Helnwein helps Narconon in Germany - The OSA/DSA Letter of 1992
In 1989, Helnwein was not only extremely generous in supporting the American Scientology model drug center in Newkirk, Oklahoma with more than DM 350,000 in sales from the art work (!) which he donated to Scientology; he was also doing it up in grand style outside his front door in his chosen homeland of Germany, as demonstrably proven by the contents of a confidential letter from the German Scientology secret service OSA/DSA of May 7, 1992.
In a "fund-raising" letter to Stuttgart Hubbard adherents who were potentially capable of providing financial support, DSA secret service agent Richard Eisenboeck, c/o Scientology Church Germany, 105 Frankfurt Ring (OSA office), 8000 Munich 40, wrote, "I would like to give you a short report on a financial project very important to Narconon and the OSA. Possibly someone has already spoken to you about it, but here is the entire story:
Gottfried Helnwein has stated that he is ready to put one of his latest photo-realistic paintings - Marilyn Monroe, see enclosed photo - on the market in a worldwide limited edition of 450 copies for the purpose of supporting Narconon and OSA (comparable works from Helnwein are conservatively estimated at DM 5,000 per lithograph (!); that would make a total of about DM 2.2 million (!) for the Scientology organization! - the author) Exclusive distribution runs through us and a Swiss litho-attorney and the pure profit flows to us (OSA - the author) and to Narconon. If desired, the lithograph will be autographed. Helnwein's lithographs are not just copies, but a valuable investment. The objective lithograph is a classic piece of aesthetics, a timeless myth, and last, but not least - a direct donation to Narconon and OSA with no burden upon the purchaser, since he is getting more than the full value for his money. The Monroe lithograph is almost twice as big as many other lithographs from Helnwein's output. The lithograph will be produced in the middle of the month of May (1992) by the artist in Switzerland, and will also be available in May. The above subscription price will be valid until distribution begins. If you really want to do me and us a favor, then decide to buy one or more Monroe lithographs and, additionally, make use of your contacts who are interested in art NOW.
Finally, this is about helping Narconon and OSA. Narconon must raise several hundred thousand marks in the next few weeks in order to meet budget."
What was meant was the Narconon "drug" center in Schliersee,
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Stuttgart, May 7, 1992
Dear Klaus,
I would like to give you a short report on a financial project very important to Narconon and the OSA. Possibly someone has already spoken to you about it, but here is the entire story:
Gottfried Helnwein has stated that he is ready to put one of his latest photo-realistic paintings - Marilyn Monroe, see enclosed photo - on the market in a worldwide limited edition of 450 copies for the purpose of supporting Narconon and OSA. Exclusive distribution runs through us and a Swiss litho-attorney and the pure profit flows to us and to Narconon. If desired, the lithograph will be autographed.
Helnwein's lithographs are not just copies, but a valuable investment. The objective lithograph is a classic piece of aesthetics, a timeless myth, and last, but not least - a direct donation to Narconon and OSA with no burden upon the purchaser, since he is getting more than the full value for his money. The Monroe lithograph is almost twice as big as many other lithographs from Helnwein's output.
The lithograph will be produced in the middle of the month of May by the artist in Switzerland, and will also be available in May. The above subscription price will be valid until distribution begins.
If you really want to do me and us a favor, then decide to buy one or more Monroe lithographs and, additionally, make use of your contacts who are interested in art NOW.
Finally, this is about helping Narconon and OSA. Narconon must raise several hundred thousand marks in the next few weeks in order to meet budget. That is supposed to be accomplished mainly through this project. The only reason that we are putting so much stress on this project is that we want Narconon to remain on our front door step and not have to be forced to emigrate.
Narconon can then also pay off OSA's bills, that is how we will recover our expenses.
In anticipation of your FAST response by telephone and with best regards,
Richard Eisenboeck
c/o Scientology Church Germany
Frankfurter Ring 105
8000 Munich 40
for the time being I can be reached in Stuttgart at 0711/649 11 15 or 640 37 73
P.S. Also, enclosed is the latest "Freiheits-Spiegel" for Baden-Wuerttemberg. Enjoy your reading!
Helnwein and the DSA/OSA secret service in Germany 1992
Richard Eisenboeck, like Helnwein, is a "Patron"
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Bavaria, under the management of Scientologist Horst Niesel, one of Helnwein's longtime acquaintances, who advertised for drug addicts in newsletters such as the one of April 5, 1986, "... You have already often heard of us. Today I would like to inquire of you whether you know people who have difficulties with drugs or alcohol. Please send us their names ..." To be sure, these efforts to harvest customers were not exactly blessed with success. For years The Center at Schliersee had to survive on allowances from OSA/DSA in Munich.
Renate and Gottfried Helnwein also had frequent personal contact with Horst Niesel's center for reasons including the sponsorship of Narconon, Inc. The Helnwein couple also met conspiratorially with Niesel to discuss other financial modalities of survival, such as happened on May 17, 1991 in Vienna in the office of long-term "Patron" Anton "Toni" Morell, who enjoyed 100% trust as Helnwein's business manager of his Austrian WISE corporation "Gottfried Helnwein, Inc.", barely one week before the opening of the Helnwein exhibition "Kindskopf" in the Minoriten Church in Krems near Vienna.
Other high-ranking Scientologists like OT and painter Helnwein's good friend Detleff Foullois, who was sentenced in 1993 in the state court in Rostock to several years in prison for tax evasion, was said to have donations of up to DM 20,000 channeled to Schliersee in the fall of 1991 at Helnwein's intercession. Foullois, with his "Cosmos Computer, Inc." computer company in Hamburg, was also a member of WISE, the Scientology business association. Like Helnwein, he was also a "Patron" (generous donor) of the IAS (International Association of Scientologists). Detleff Foullois, together with his partner Koenig, outfitted and networked the Germany Scientology organizations with computer hardware and software. The OSA - intelligence agency - computer system, with its offices in Munich and Duesseldorf, have also been running under his set-up since the early 1990s. All important German-speaking business bosses in WISE are in constant contact with each other. The true commercial holders of power of the Scientology organizations located in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are individual, well-to-do WISE members like the high-ranking Scientologists Kempe, Fliegerbauer, Foullois, Herold, Stricker, Heilig, Brase, Epple, Annau, along with a handful of other persons. Helnwein, in charge of his company "Gottfried Helnwein Inc." was member of WISE's Austrian
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net of Scientologists. These people, in the real sense of the word, are the "godfathers" of the organization. They hold the commercial threads together.
A conspicuously large number of threads run to Gottfried Helnwein, the real "capo di capi," although not as a WISE member in Germany, but "only" on a detour through Austria. For many years he has had direct private and business contact with many of these people and not infrequently issues, with his wife Renate, Scientology "management instructions" in regards to doing business together.
But help came too late for the Schliersee Narconon. Not just for it, but also for the one in Berlin; they were closed on grounds of questionable practices such as those committed by multiple Narconon staff members in Germany who were convicted for deprivation of liberty, coercion and violations of medical practice. Only the center in Itzehoe is open at this time.
In the summer of 1990 Helnwein himself was reveling in his castle in Burgbrohl, the occasion of which was the filming of a production for Austrian television of a session for a new Saturday evening show planned by Dietmar Schoenherr and television producer Peter Reichelt for the ORF by the name of "Kinderspiel" ["Child's Play"] before the audience, some of whom were celebrities like Dieter Schoenherr, for example, who was destined to become moderator and his co-moderator Desiree Nosbusch, about the qualities of the Narconon center, particularly the new model center in the USA.
The last Narconon building remaining in Germany is located in Itzehoe in northern Germany. On May 28, 1996, journalist Stephan Clausen wrote an article which appeared on the front page of the Itzehoe newspaper entitled, "Doubts about Therapy in Narconon - Fatal Case." Clausen wrote, "After the death of the director of the Narconon drug self-help establishment, the presiding authorities performed a painstaking examination of events.... In a report by 'S-Zett' television magazine by independent broadcaster Vox, former drug addicts brought up serious accusations against the establishment. For instance, an ex-junkie and drug addicts were treated in Narconon by lay people under use of force with practices clearly ascribed to Scientology. According to expert opinions, these methods are medically objectionable. Up to now, though, there has been no way of interceding because the Narconon patients admitted to the Itzehoe Hospital
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could not be brought to give testimony. The death which has just become known, however, of the director of the Itzehoe Narconon, Wolfgang Hafner, has shaken up the authorities. Hafner, who died in April with jaundice, could have been saved, according to statements from the county hospital, if he would have been delivered there in time. He was brought fully disabled into the clinic, where he died shortly afterward... Presumably Hafner was the victim of the 'therapy' which he had propagated himself - auditing and the Purification Rundown, practices of the Scientology organization. In the rundown, the addict is supposed to regularly sweat the poison out of his body by spending hours in the sauna. In auditing, the junkies are supposed to learn how to free themselves from space and time as a spiritual being..."
The future fate of the last Narconon center remaining in Germany is currently being decided upon by the authorities.
DSA/OSA agent Eisenboeck continued in his Helnwein - Art Fund Raising" letter of May 7, 1992 to describe the manner in which the center in Schliersee should be saved, with Helnwein's help, from closing:
"That is supposed to be accomplished mainly through this (Helnwein) project. The only reason that we are putting so much stress on this project is that we want Narconon to remain on our front door step (in Schliersee) and not have to forced to be emigrate. Narconon can then also pay off OSA's bills (!), that is how we will recover our expenses. In anticipation of your FAST response by telephone and with best regards - Richard Eisenboeck."
So not even Gottfried Helnwein, in spite of his fulminating yet so lucrative efforts, could stave off the approaching close of his "brother in faith" Niesel's Schliersee Scientology clinic due to acute financial problems.
An OSA man tells his story
The Scientologist who received the secret service flyer from German OSA man Eisenboeck, and who shortly before had left his organization, turned on May 10, 1992, soon after receiving the fund-raising letter, to Germany's most effective and celebrated Scientology critic, Renate Hartwig: "Just this morning something happened which I absolutely have to tell you about, because on Mother's Day Sunday at 8:30 in the morning I actually received a
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special delivery letter from Richard Eisenboeck of OSA, who apparently has not yet realized that I have had it with their organization. This letter came along with a slander rag from OSA, called 'Freiheitsspiegel,' which was printed in an issue of 500,000 copies. ... I am sending you this letter mainly because, as an artist, it really burns me up by hitting an especially sore point, namely the fact that there is already one artist, in this case Helnwein, who, on top of that, has almost the same style as I do, who is being used by OSA to help make money for OSA by selling his art work. Also take note of the spot in the letter where Eisenboeck writes: 'Narconon can then also pay off OSA's bills.'
This brought a few things to mind which occurred during my own brief activities in 1989 which aided OSA in Munich: namely, that OSA represents Missions and other Scientology establishments in court, legally represents Missions and carries out PR campaigns for them, conducts surveillance and gathers information on critics and Scientologists in the vicinity of the Missions, and then sends bills for their activity to the Missions. It runs practically the same as the Mafia: the Missions, according to OSA directives, have the duty of reporting to OSA any criticism or press negative to Scientology in their area. Without asking permission from the Missions, OSA then takes over the role of 'Guardian' for the Missions, raises a cloud of activity and pretext against the alleged 'enemy,' then submits a bill for a horrendous sum to the Missions for its own activity, whereby the Missions are then indebted to and dependent upon OSA, and, of course, able to be pressured any time by OSA in the event that the Mission no long remains loyal and 'on lines.' And in case OSA actually does not have any money or, for instance, has to run off 500,000 copies of an issue of 'Freiheitsspiegel' to inform society about Scientology's enemies, pressure on the Missions is simply increased with the same argument that is used by the IAS (International Association of Scientologists). Moreover, IAS works together with OSA and directly coordinates the 'fund-raising operations' with the 'guardian operations' by OSA. The arguments of IAS and OSA are always the same 'or else your Mission will be closed and you can no longer be free.'
The parallel to the 'protection money' coercion method of the Mafia is
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always the same ... Besides that, I was assigned as staff member in the Ethics Department of the Scientology Church Bavaria out of Munich. The name of my post was 'Ethics Officer Administrator' - in plain language, administrative assistant to the ethics officer. It was my mission to put ethics folders of staff as well as publics of the organization in alphabetical order. In doing that, I also had to file individual reports and descriptions about the so-called HCO auditing, that is an auditing which has nothing to do with 'Bridge auditing'; the staff member is checked out on the e-meter as to whether they have done something which could be a danger to the organization. Since I was a part time staff member, I got to eyeball these descriptions as I filed them in the ethics folders. As someone who was not involved, it was no problem for me to read about the most intimate revelations of the staff and customers. Auditing reports were also received there which included one from a female staff member who, while being checked out in the Ethics Department, had to tell the auditor whom in the organization she had and was having sexual relations. In that report the staff member even described each individual act, with the exact location, time, form and precise duration of the experience. And I could read X number of such reports by staff, almost like porno books, even though these were very personal descriptions which really had nothing to do with me and with which I had nothing to do.... I would be happy to state and repeat this at any time under oath or before a court."
The U.S. magazine "Celebrity", as do other magazines of the Scientology organization, obtains sponsor information on generous payments from famous donors since the late '80s almost exclusively from the donors themselves, because it is a special honor for every Scientologist, as a financially capable supporter, to publicly get positive mention as a "good Scientologist." Not even Gottfried Helnwein is an exception to that, as we shall see.
Vienna 1980/1
Two detailed articles in the Viennese news magazine "Profil" of 1980 and 1981 are conspicuous in that the one in the former issue deals almost exclusively with Helnwein's art and the other, entitled "Human Tragedies," warns about dangers, such as that which emanate from Scientology.
In this story about Scientology in Austria, a case will be spotlighted
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of a 23 year old technical student from Upper Austria, who, for a short time, had an intense relationship with Scientology in Vienna, and who went "deep into debt for them. After the mandatory, free personality test, together with scheduling an introductory communication course for a relatively ridiculous 300 Austrian shillings, the student, on his first day of contact with Scientology, was found to be worthy of obtaining the lauded state of being 'cleared' of all worldly ills.
Most of the obstacles consisted mainly of things like taking the 'Student Hat,' the 'mini-tape-recorder course,' along with the Purification Rundown. Confronted with the specially made price of 60,000 Austrian shillings (about DM 8,600): 'I stayed extremely entirely calm, as if I found that to be quite normal, but I never in my dreams thought that I would go along with that.' 24 hours later, his nightmare turned into reality.
When the not exactly overly strong-willed man appeared at the second session of his cheap course, a well-intentioned, talkative duo was already there waiting for him. The student's excuses - he said he could not raise or obtain the required sum in his wildest dreams, not even get a loan - boomeranged on him: 'In a bank on Graben in downtown Vienna sits someone who has sympathy with us,' he was informed. One hour later the contract was perfect and the count-down to the beginning of his new life had started. His first discomforts were to be first overcome in the 'Purification Rundown,' for which 15,385 shillings of the 60,000 he had paid were deducted. The superficial check-out by a house doctor cost another 2,000 shillings, then began the big sauna marathon in which not only everything negative was sweated out of him, but also, as a bonus, he was to be protected from radiation, as promised by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. ... Already sick with doubt, he steamed together with other participants for three hours at a time every day in a public sauna, not forgetting to take the all important miracle vitamin of niacin, as prescribed by Scientology, in ever increasing doses. The medical supervision proved to be exemplary, every day he received a slip of paper with profound tips like 'eat many vegetables' and 'sleep well.' During one round, an older gentleman finally helped him with the key liberating experience, 'They have already gotten to know us with time and have told us they're sorry, that we supposedly have to pay so much money for the sauna.' ...
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His efforts to disappear without saying anything finally let the student get a look at what was going on behind the scenes of the 'non-profit organization.' Full-time professional Scientologists ... eventually did not know what else to do but to explain to him about their performance-oriented starvation wages.... The constant telephone calls have meantime stopped, but he still gets letters with the friendly request 'to think everything over once more,' months after racking up his debt
Renate Helnwein, '...for six years now ... hired Scientologists have had limited understanding for the overdrawn loan payer: 'A poor dummy, but things like that happens sometimes.' She is not sorry about her own investments in the amount of about 80,000 shillings, however, she has stopped letting critical remarks about herself go by a long time ago: 'I don't even read the lies that are spread about us any more...'."
One year later, in 1981, the magazine "Profil" wrote about Gottfried Helnwein in its story "Horrors and Heroes":
"The graphic artist, who found 'clarity in what I wanted' in the American Scientology movement and who continues to regard the controversial life management sect as 'a hammer' currently stands on the verge of a decision. The Hamburg art high school offered him a teacher's chair last week for media illustration. But at the same time he would like to start an idol series with Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol and Muhammed Ali..."
Gottfried Helnwein, Inc. in Vienna in 1981 and the problems with the tax authorities in Austria since 1994
On December 2, 1981, to better market his art work in Vienna, Gottfried Helnwein founded the "Gottfried Helnwein Corporation, Inc.", HRB nbr. 28.946, of which he was sole business manager. The starting capital of the company was 500,000 shillings. The purpose of the firm included "the trade, evaluation, import and export, exhibiting and holding exhibitions and other presentations of paintings, sculptures and miscellaneous works of art, along with the publication, distribution and sale of art prints and graphics of all sorts...".
At the end of 1984, Helnwein moved, according to his own statement, together with his
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family from Vienna to Burg Brohl into the castle of the same name near Cologne. Shortly after his move, on November 14, 1985, Helnwein stepped down as business manager of his corporation. He installed one of the best friends of the Helnwein family as the new business manager, Anton "Toni" Morell, a great adherent of the Scientology Organization, just like Gottfried and Renate Helnwein were then.
In the magazine of the International Association of Scientologists (IAS), "Impact," issue 39 from 1991, which was published in England, there is found on page 45 a list of the so-called "patrons" of the association.
"Patrons," according to statements made in this magazine, are donors who have made contributions of at least $40,000 to the IAS, and to their "war chest" in particular. Under the column title of "Austria" are 24 names under the designation of "Patrons." One of them is Toni Morell, the business manager of "Gottfried Helnwein, Inc.," whose company name was modified on November 4, 1993 to "Boulevard of Broken Dreams Kunstverlags GmbH" ["Kunstverlags GmbH: Art Publishing, Inc.]. People doing business in the company initially included Katharina and Peter Markowitsch, along with Gottfried Helnwein, and later included Anton "Toni" Morell and Peter Tovornik.
Specifically, this company distributed Helnwein posters worldwide, including the famous "James Dean" poster and that of Edward Hoppers "Nighthawks" - posters taken from paintings of Presley, of Bogart and one of Monroe at a bar. In Helnwein's words, the James Dean poster was one of the "most sold" posters of the world.
The relatively large sales income then flowing to Vienna from around the world was also one of the main reasons Helnwein was obliged to confide in especially clever tax advisors since 1981. Helnwein found one of them in Viennese Scientologist Dr. Erwin Annau, an iridescent figure in Austria's Scientology scene. Erwin Annau, who was still on staff in the Wolfgang Annau tax office at the time, became the tax advisor to "Gottfried Helnwein, Inc." in Vienna, and also to the Helnwein couple. Annau's first goal was to decrease the official income with "operationally" related expenses. In doing so, he came across the ingenious idea of listing Gottfried Helnwein's "donations" - fees for Scientology courses and his visits to Scientology's pre-eminent Flag Sea Org headquarters in Clearwater, Florida - as "artistic" consultation, which could then be accounted for and written off as work-related expenses.
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The people at Flag headquarters were happy to help out. In 1982 alone, the FSO (Flag Service Organization, 210 S. Fort Harrison Ave., Clearwater, Florida 34616, USA), presented a "bill" calculated just over DM 12,000 to "Gottfried Helnwein, Neustiftgasse in Vienna" for culture management and counseling courses." The sum of the bill was to be paid, at the instructions of the FSO per telex, by transferring money to a secret FSO special bank account in the Luxemburg "Creditbank." Events similar to that occurred the following year, after Helnwein's emigration to Germany in winter 1984.
In 1985, Annau, full of pride and arrogance about the supposed stupidity of the Viennese tax authorities which were supposed to have checked out Helnwein's 1983 tax returns, communicated to his friend Helnwein that the "Scientology expense model" had once again, as it had in the previous year, been accepted by the tax authorities without problems. Annau also had something prepared for "Helnwein Inc." Besides Helnwein, Annau also gave tax advice to other top Scientologists in Austria, including Juergen Walter Apple. Like Annau, since 1994 Epple has been entangled in an extensive tax evasion scandal, the investigation of which has included the "Scientology Austria" organization. The reason for that: issuance of various false invoices.
The "Gottfried Helnwein, Inc." company, which in any case was involved in a wide-scale investigation by Viennese tax authorities, was also found in these investigations to have been issued a false invoice from an Epple company, whose offices were in the Italian-Swiss tax haven of Campione, of over DM 100,000 for various "consultant" activities by Mr. J. W. Epple. The written "advice" consisted of two reports written independently of each other:
a. analysis of balance statements for business years 1981 to 1984 and b. analysis and prospective development of a Scientology Celebrity Center under the personal management of Gottfried Helnwein in Burgbrohl, Germany from 1985. Looking through the text of the second analysis, it becomes particularly clear how extensively and how much detail plans with Helnwein for construction and operation of a new Scientology Organization in Germany were, and even that the development costs were to be written off in taxes in Austria.
Even after Helnwein's move from Vienna to Burgbrohl,
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and his replacing himself with "Patron" Toni Morelli as company business manager, Erwin Annau was still acting as his tax consultant. In 1989, Annau broadcast a flyer to all his Scientology customers, in particular to Viennese WISE members; WISE is a sub-organization of Scientology, exclusively for commercial corporations, self-employed and independent professionals who, for payment of a large membership fee and a percentage of their sales which flow to the Florida center in a roundabout way, may follow business doctrine. In his information letter, he communicated instructions he had received from the WISE center in Florida that "all future payments should be made to the new bank account ... in the Luxemburg Creditbank, keyword 'FSO'."
Anton "Toni" Morell, business manager of WISE member "Gottfried Helnwein, Inc.," also settled an open invoice by sending a check for "consulting activities" shortly after receiving the flyer in an amount of over DM 17,000 to the Luxemburg Creditbank account given to him by Annau, payable to FSO in Clearwater. In 1994, the bank account number was altered a third time and the "WISE members" were notified.
The secret raid against Scientology in Austria - 1994
Finally, after months of preparations, the justice department in Austria delivered a powerful blow to "Scientology Church Austria" the week of 7 - 11 November 1994. Tax investigators confiscated the organization's bookkeeping documents in search-and-seizures carried out across Austria. At that point, the state attorney's office took over investigation on suspicion of wide-spread tax evasion. A total of 30 offices and residences were searched from top to bottom. "The operation by the revenue agency is threatening a vital nerve of Scientology in Austria," as reported by journalists Hannes Reichmann and Guenther Zaeuner of "Wirtschaftswoche" of November 24, 1994, in their cover story "Suggestions of Money-Laundering." Another legal process which is dangerous to the organization is still active under file number 26b Vr 6047 / 93 of investigative Magistrate Peter Seda, and is being worked by the revenue office in Vienna. "Wirtschaftswoche" continued, " ... What began last year as a simple routine check for a total of 15 people in Vienna has since grown into a monster process with the plot line of a psycho-thriller
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... After anonymous tips were received, criminal tax proceedings were initiated in summer 993 against 15 people, their sales people and tax advisor. In places, the court record reads like a secret dossier of the former DDR's State Security: the 15 possible tax violators, from Dr. Franz Josef Hofer (No. 1) to Dr. Wolfgang Freisleben (No. 15) maintained apparently tight and closely-guarded business relations with each other. A sample: 'For alleged items, which were in fact manipulated by No. 3, No 6 entered figures in the amount of 255,474 Austrian shillings or about DM 37,000. For descriptions of standard performance, No. 7 entered payments, incorrectly, to No. 3 in the amount of 3.4 million shillings, or about DM 490,000.' The search-and-seizures yielded immediate results for the tax investigators: 'In the seizures carried out so far, prepared flyers on the methods of creating false invoices were found, for which purpose donations from companies to the Scientology Church were to entered on the books as expenses. Furthermore, from the Scientology organizations, there were suggestions made on money-laundering in the form of rights to music or art being bought, which then, after a duration of one year would be able to be resold at a price 10 to 15 times higher untaxed to the Scientology company ETICO Ltd. in London.' The happy reaction of one of the tax investigators, 'That is indeed fabulous. There it states how one evades taxes in real life.' Besides the fact that a tax adviser from the sect had received the notorious 'instructions' of how donations to Scientology should be treated in a manner so as to avoid as much tax as possible, yet more jewels were found in the investigative records: 'The organs of Scientology act under the company "Graphik und Design Business Managing Sportmanaging Consulting." The tax advisor is also a Scientologist who holds sales seminars for Scientology and who gives course participants false invoices. Two false invoices for 1986 of over 495,000 shillings, about DM 71,000, and 290,000 shillings, about DM 42,000 have been found. A suspicion exists that No. 14 routinely wrote false invoices. 'While the agents have not yet managed to investigate a corporation of this name, the identity of the tax advisor has been established: No. 14 in the procedure is well-known Scientologist, tax advisor and Helnwein's close friend, Dr. Erwin Annau. ... Under Nos. 3 and 15 in the court files are the names of Juergen Walter Epple and Wolfgang Freisleben. A couple of years ago, both were operating an agency specializing in bank and stock businesses,
Helnwein & Scientology, Lies & Treason by Peter Reichelt, 1997 - Page 150
'Epple Inc.' in Vienna, in which the tax investigators are interested under the heading of 'tax protection relay points of the Epple company'."
Scientologist Epple, in turn, is also accountable for the false invoice, produced in 1985, to Gottfried Helnwein, Inc. At the end of August, 1993, the trail finally led in Scientology's direction: 'Furthermore, suggestions of money-laundering were made by Scientology organs Nos. 9 to 13, in the form that rights to art or music had been bought for them.' These "organs" turned out to be Fritz Spohn, Gerald Peissl, Christine Schwab, Juergen Winter, as well as Friedrich Rainer. The investigations are still continuing and in April 1997, over 3 years after investigations began, are far from over.
This translation originated at http://cisar.org.
The url of the original translation was
http://members.tripod.com/German_Scn_News/has00.htm
(Scientology got that account terminated when Joe Cisar published his thesis on the
press and public relations of L. Ron Hubbard.)
The version of this
translation is August 21, 2000
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